Va. Menhaden Factory May Close

Buyout, Dwindling Business Cause Corporate Confusion

NORFOLK — Virginia's menhaden industry, the largest on the Atlantic coast and for decades a vital source of jobs and income, is reeling from a major corporate shakeup.

Once home to 18 menhaden processing plants, the remote Chesapeake Bay town of Reedville will soon be down to one.

But while a piece of waterfront history and as many as 260 jobs may be lost, sportfishing in the lower Bay may benefit, along with marine ecology, some experts say.

In Reedville, on the Northern Neck peninsula near the Maryland line, two seafood plants each year process some 500 million pounds of menhaden caught from New Jersey to North Carolina.

Menhaden are ground up and sold as animal feed and oil.

The capture of these small, bony fish generates about $30 million annually, making menhaden the most valuable finfish in Virginia.

Only the blue crab brings in more money in Virginia's commercial fishing industry, according to state statistics.

But this week, the Texas-based company that owns one of the Reedville plants announced that it has bought its local competitor, Ampro Fisheries Inc., for an undisclosed amount.

Zapata Protein Inc., headquartered in Houston, said it will probably close the rival plant, downsize its fishing fleet from 20 to 13 boats and lay off all 260 Ampro employees after the menhaden season ends this winter.

However, Zapata will hire ``an undetermined number'' of Ampro workers and fishermen next year, after company officials have more time to iron out their consolidation plans, said Zapata general manager Steve Jones.

``There's sort of a hushed numbness right now,'' said Angus Murdoch, director of the Reedville Fishermen's Museum.

``No one knows how this loss of jobs is going to affect us. There's a lot of rumors, a lot of people worried.

The Ampro plant will stand for now and will be used as storage, Jones said. Zapata has not decided what to do with the waterfront property in the future, he added.

The ramifications of the deal, rumored for several weeks, are widespread.

Where Virginia could boast of a vibrant and growing menhaden trade during the boom years before World War I, it now will have just one processing plant - a sign that, as with oysters, commercial fishing remains a troubled if not endangered business.